After two days at Halmstad golf club memorable mostly for the spirit shown by the Europeans and for a stinging insult thrown by a former colleague of the United States' women, the latter capitalised on their superiority yesterday to retain the Solheim Cup by 16 points to 12.

"We played well but there is not a lot you can do when the other team plays better," said Laura Davies, whose 4&3 victory over Brittany Lincicome was one of the few bright moments for Europe on a day that was as gloomy as the Swedish weather.

There is not a lot you can do, either, when your opponents go out on the course intent on making a fool of Dottie Pepper, a former stalwart of US Solheim Cup teams who had described some of the American players as "freakin' chokin' dogs" - a sentiment broadcast across the US, albeit inadvertently.

"I chose a bad set of words," she said, adding that a technical hitch had led to her private opinions becoming public. With technical hitches like that, who needs motivational team talks? But the triumphant US captain, Betsy King, denied that Pepper's intervention had spurred her players on. "You usually retire when you can't play any more. That is why you become a television commentator," she said of Pepper. Her players, lined up behind her, roared their approval at their captain's retort.

They showed similar unity of spirit on the course, especially after a series of disappointments over the first two days when matches they seemed to have won were either lost or halved on the closing holes. Only the most myopic of European supporters would have missed the visitors' superiority prior to yesterday's 12 singles yet the visitors entered the decisive series one point behind their hosts.

Nicole Castrale will go down in the history books as the player who holed the winning putt but her six-footer on the par-three 16th to defeat Maria Hjorth was only the high point of a series of wonderful American performances in the singles, which the visitors won 8½-3½.

Helen Alfredsson, Europe's captain, whose team had chiselled out their one-point lead when Saturday's delayed fourballs were completed yesterday morning, sent out many of her strongest players at the head of the field. The plan was to build momentum by flooding the leaderboards dotted around the course with the blue of Europe but like most of her plans this week it went pear-shaped as American red quickly became the colour of the day.

Catriona Matthew provided a momentary flicker of hope for the home galleries, winning four of five holes on the back nine in her match against Laura Diaz to take the first point of the afternoon. "Hopefully the others will take some encouragement from that," she said. But by then the visitors were ahead in six matches, level in four and down in only one. It did not take long for the American players to turn their on-course advantage into points, with Juli Inkster a 4&3 victor over Iben Tinning and Pat Hurst edging out Sophie Gustafson on the 17th green 2&1.

The most significant point of the day was earned by Stacy Prammanasudh, who was matched with Suzann Pettersen. With Annika Sorenstam spending most of the year battling against injury, the Norwegian has emerged as Europe's best player, winning one major, the LPGA championship, and coming close in another, the Kraft Nabisco. She must have been regarded by her captain as a banker point in the singles, an impression reinforced as she birdied the 1st to take the lead. But in a way that was to be repeated throughout the 18 holes Prammanasudh fought back immediately, winning the 2nd with a birdie of her own.

The 16th, a 170-yard par three, had been a pivotal hole in many of the matches and so it proved again as the American's par edged Pettersen's bogey. That put her ahead by one hole, and a birdie on the last confirmed her victory and the growing sense that this was not to be Europe's day.

Any lingering doubts were erased when Morgan Pressel, who had only picked up half a point in three matches over the previous two days, found her form to defeat Sorenstam 2&1. "Sometimes you can't just look at the scores to decide who had a good week and who had a bad week," the Swede said afterwards. Unfortunately for Sorenstam and for European women's golf, history does place its faith in the score and by that measure this was America's week.